Death Bringer and Receiver
by LythiaHarpen
Summary: NOT A CROSSOVER. Just a oneshot, because I thought it might be interesting. Melancholia meets somebody who doesn't actually approve of her actions... unsurprisingly, but this time it has consequences.


So, I thought this would be pretty funny. For all Skulduggery Pleasant fans that haven't read Sandman, get yo asses to it.

The character featured in this is Death, of Neil Gaiman's. The man is a genius and I could not resist bringing Death into this FanFiction.

This is rated T for the gore and the fear and everything that goes with it.

Read on, and remember to review.

Death Bringer spoilers. You have been warned.

Melancholia St Clair tried once again to gather her shadows. With a little gasp she released the feeble handful she had conjured.

She leaned forward on the table. "A few more stitches." She held up her wrists, inviting the shackles.

The Necromancer who was stitching her arm complied, and Melancholia fought the urge to scream and punch the woman as the needle pierced her skin. They were on the run, so they had been unable to access very potent painkillers.

It was three days since she'd been stolen back from the Sanctuary prison and the moody Melancholia was feeling rattled. Not only had the Sanctuary agents dampened her power while she'd been under their control, they'd disabled a lot of the symbols that gave her the power of the Death Bringer.

But now… Now Nervosa Vulcan was stitching the broken symbols together again. She had reopened the gash on her arm and lined them up correctly. She had lent her an object of power and given her energy and time. If Nervosa wasn't so silent all the time, Melancholia was sure they could have been great friends. As it was, there was no point.

Melancholia winced and tried not to groan for more than half an hour, then, at a nod from Nervosa, she sat up. She motioned for Nervosa to remove the shackles from her wrists. The power-binding shackles were simply security – should Melancholia's power have come back suddenly, the results would have been disastrous.

When the metal fell away, a great surge of energy poured into Melancholia, and she laughed. Oh, Nervosa had done a _wonderful _job. She turned to give her thanks and the shadows pouring from her chest skewered the Necromancer woman through the middle. She gave a choked gag and dropped to the floor.

"Oops." Melancholia giggled sadistically, and walked forward. She reached out to open the door to this paltry little room when there was the sound of somebody clearing their throat.

Whirling around, Melancholia gave a start to see a young woman standing in the corner of the cell. Said young woman was wearing all black, and Melancholia gave a sneer at the size and volume of her black hair. She recognised the symbol around the girl's neck, though. An ankh.

"Who are you?" Melancholia said, suspicious. "And how did you get in?"

"You already know who I am. Or, at least, you're very familiar with who I am." The girl folded her arms, tapping a foot clad in black leather. Her skin was white, contrasting with the black singlet quite remarkably.

"I don't get it."

"Of course you don't. That's why you deal it out so easily." The girl wandered over to the table Melancholia had been lying on. She looked down at Nervosa, at the wide eyes, at the gaping mouth, at the blood that had dribbled from her mouth down her chin, at the great big wound through her middle. She smiled ruefully. "So many girls, so little time." She turned to look at Melancholia. "You've been causing me a great deal of stress lately, you know that?"

The hairs on the back of Melancholia's neck prickled. "Who are you?" she repeated.

The girl in black appeared not to hear her. "You gave me many a while ago, and then you took them back from me." Her gaze leveled as she tilted her chin. "Why? I can see into your mind, I know you can see the beauty in killing."

Her words fell like hammer blows. Melancholia's heart nearly dropped out. "You're…"

The girl tilted her chin down, eyebrows knit, and glared. "I am Death."

Melancholia began to shake her head. "No, no. This is a mistake. I'm the Death Bringer."

"Sure, you bring them. But where do those souls go after dying? They come to live in my realm." Death walked forward, ankh gleaming, and held a hand out to Melancholia. "You _really_ want to find out what it's like? Then come. Join them."

"I know what death is like. I feel it. It fills me."

"You are mistaken. What you do not know is that I am essential in the everyday world. Without me this world would become overcrowded and unruly."

"But the Passage would stop humans needing to reproduce anyway. There'd be no more new life."

"There has to be new life, to have new ideas, to renew the balance of good and evil. Besides, if I didn't exist…" Death looked up, eyes burning. "Humans are known to get bored and irritable. Do you not think that after a couple of years of immortality that humans would get bored of their fellows?"

"I'm sure that's not…"

"They'd begin killing each other, wouldn't they?" challenged Death. Melancholia looked stunned. "And your experiment would be proved redundant. So, instead of saving the human race, you'd be sealing its fate."

Mouth agape, Melancholia backed away a little more until she hit the wall. When she did her legs gave out and she slid the length of it until she hit the floor. _This cannot be happening._ "How do you know about the Passage?"

"Do not fool with me, girl. The Endless are quite omniscient, really, and Desire especially knows a lot about it… something about some idiot who wanted authority so badly he created you."

"That's not… that's not true. Craven is…"

"Dead."

There was silence.

A small, amused smile rose on Death's lips. "In the end, everything comes to me. So to try and cheat me will only invite me in quicker. Isn't that what Necromancy is all about? Cheating death?"

"Necromancers are scared of death."

"Mmmm. Well, what to do? I've really come for _her_…" Death nodded towards the corpse of Nervosa. "But… I don't know. Two for one Tuesday?"

"Please don't."

"That's the thing about the Endless… we are not merciful to those who mess in our affairs. DREAM? ARE YOU THERE?"

There was a whirl of shadows that gleamed silver and suddenly a man was standing in the same corner Death had come from. Melancholia felt her head begin to spin.

He was rather attractive, but Melancholia didn't really to notice that right now. The heavy black hair, the shadowy eyes that flash, the slender frame, and the sumptuous attire. Morpheus, or Dream, another of the Endless, had a presence so terrible yet heartening to most.

Not to Melancholia. She thought his arrival was freaky and was really not looking forward to how this would end.

"Sister, you called?" Dream turned his head slowly, taking in where he was. His eyes flicked momentarily to the body on the floor before he folded his sleeved arms and looked over at Death.

Death was tapping her lips with one finger in thought. "I did indeed."

"What for?" His eyes moved to Melancholia and she felt a strange sense of being trapped. His gaze caught hers and didn't let go until he broke it off. He was paralysing.

"For her." Death pointed with her thumb at Melancholia and Melancholia felt her sense of panic grow.

"What has she done?" Dream allowed Death to stare at him scornfully for a few seconds before going, "ah."

"Indeed."

"_Her._"

"Indeed."

"And you ask me with regards to punishment?"

_Punishment?_

"Not punishment. She was only a puppet. But we need to ensure that such a thing will not happen again. I am Death, and I don't like being so easily tricked."

Again Dream looked at Melancholia. Again, her heart pounded with fear. Her fingers scratched at the floor.

"Well…" Dream unfolded his arms. His robes fell in glorious folds from his skinny body and the dark blue fabric made his skin look as pale as snow – which of course, it was. "If you insist on being merciful, you must intend for me to do what I can?"

Melancholia's heartbeat began thundering in her ears.

"Yes."

She went to jump up, to use her power, to kill these two jokers right now, and then her vision dimmed, and she opened her eyes, and found herself face to face with a rat-monkey similar to those in the caves beneath Gordon Edgley's house.

She went to struggle but her wrists were encased in stone. The rat-monkey jumped up and with claws sharp as iron, rent her head to toe.

She screamed, and she screamed with the pain, and she gasped, and she woke. She was lying on the table whereupon she had been restored to power. Scrabbling for the edge, she leaned over it and vomited. The dream had been so vivid… she touched her sternum, her abdomen, reassuring herself that her skin was still intact. But the pain… she could still feel that pain, and that desperation that had converged upon her in her dream when she'd realised _she was going to die_…

What about those two…? Melancholia scanned the room. There was no sign of them. So surely all of it was just a dream. All of it. And she wasn't going to be punished for killing so many people. She knew she wouldn't be able to do so now, though, after feeling what it was like…

The two entities weren't here though. Death and Dream must have been made up. And she hadn't really killed anybody in this room. It was all fake.

And then she tripped over something.

_Oh, god._

By the blood pool surrounding Nervosa's body, an ankh had been painted onto the floor with red…


End file.
